Integrating the Framework of 21

Century Learning (4C) into

Creative Music Learning

Oriana Tio Parahita Nainggolan, Djohan Salim, Ayub Prasetiyo, and Vill Alvian Marthien

Institut Seni Indonesia Yogyakarta, Jl. Parangtritis Km 6,5 Sewon, Bantul, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Keywords: Creative music learning, 21

century learning, 4C

Abstract: Creative music learning is one of the challenging subject in learning music for elementary school students.

The main topic of creative music is sound. It is the most important element in learning music. Sound must

recognize and heard at the beginning of music lesson. Creative music aims not only to develop students’

listening skills, but also to develop the ability in making innovation in music either creating creative musical

composition or musical instrument. The students also will get the advantages from creative music learning

process such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation (4C). In the

framework 21

century learning, the 4C are the ability that must achieved by the students. Although creative

music subject is important in learning music, but it has not been widely taught in public schools. This paper

will examine how 4C integrated in creative music learning. The data obtained from observations and

interviews during the music creative learning process. The results shown that students integrate 4C in the

learning process. Making creative music requires critical thinking finding various possibilities in order making

innovations in music. Communication skill is also needed to express the ideas from critical thoughts. The

Collaborative ability also used when playing creative music. Critical thinking skills, communication, and

collaboration will ultimately result in creativity and innovation in making creative music.

1 INTRODUCTION

Human life in the 21

century underwent a massive

change. In the 21

Century, the entire fulfilment of

life needs is based on knowledge, it makes the 21

century is also known as knowledge age. The changes

in life in the 21

century affect various aspects of

human life, including education. Education in the 21

century is knowledge-based education.

Education in the 21

century prepares students

to survive various kinds of life changes. The 21

century education is also designed students get ready

to face the changing trends in employment in the 21

century, knowledge age work. The work trend in the

century is very different from the trend of work

in the past century which is based on industry

(Trilling and Fadel, 2009: 4).

Figure 1. Work Trend at Industrial Age

Figure 2. Work Trend at Knowledge Age

The education curriculum in the 21

century is

designed to prepare students to deal with various

changes that occur in the 21

century. Educational

researchers agree that if we want to prepare students

to compete in the 21st century, education must help

students to learn and develop four basic abilities:

critical thinking, creative thinking, collaboration, and

communication, which is called 4 C (Kokkidou,

2013). The 21

century curriculum must be

redesigned and reflect the importance of 4c in

learning (Rotherham & Willingham, 2010; Pitchers &

Soden, 2000: Trilling, 2008). Every learning in the

century must reflect 4c in all its learning

activities.

In 21

century learning, music plays an

important role in preparing students to improve their

4c abilities (Riconalla & Silor: 2017). To be able to

prepare students to fulfil 4c abilities, music lessons in

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Nainggolan, O., Salim, D., Prasetiyo, A. and Marthien, V.

Integrating the Framework of 21st Century Learning (4C) into Creative Music Learning.

DOI: 10.5220/0008562602340239

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities (ICONARTIES 2019), pages 234-239

ISBN: 978-989-758-450-3

the 21

century were also redesigned. The music

material used to develop 4c's abilities is creative

music. In creative music learning, students are given

the opportunity to be able to improve their abilities

4c.

Creative music is a musical ability with active

learning. The focus of this subject is the basic sound

foundation in all music learning. In creative music

subject, the student not only learning music, but they

also learn about critical thinking, creative thinking,

collaboration, and communication. This paper is

aimed to analysed how the 4's integrated into music

creative.

2 THE FRAMEWORK OF 21

CENTURY LEARNING

The goal of 21

century schools preparing students to

face the challenges of life in the 21

century. To be

able facing the challenges of life in the 21

century,

students must have important competencies to fulfil

cognitive and social abilities (P21, 2006; Taylor,

2011). The partnership for 21

Century Learning,

known as P21 develops a 21

century learning

curriculum that has an interest in academic

knowledge that focuses on the life and career skills

(P21, 2006). According to P21's students must learn

important abilities such as critical thinking, creative

thinking, communication and collaboration to be able

to live successfully in the 21

century (P21, 2015).

Figure 3. The Framework of 21

Century Learning

(P21, 2015)

The 21

century learning framework is a

development of the previous framework of learning.

In the previous century, there were three important

basic abilities that students must acquire: reading,

writing, and arithmetic or what is called 3R. These

three basic abilities in the 21

century not enough to

prepare students to survive and succeed. Therefore,

P21 develops a curriculum that combines 3R's

abilities with 4C's. In the 21

century learning 3Rs is

translated into life and career skills, learning, and

innovation skills and information media and

technology skills (P21, 2015).

The following are the abilities students must

possess in the 21

century learning framework

(Trilling and Fadel, 2009: 47):

a. Life and Career skills consists of flexibility and

adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and

cross-cultural interaction, productivity and

accountability, leadership and responsibility.

b. Learning and innovation skills consist of

critical thinking and problem solving, creative

thinking and innovation, communication, and

collaboration.

c. Information Media and Technology skills

consist of information literacy, media literacy, and

information and communication technology literacy.

From all the abilities that students must acquire

in 21

century learning, the ability of critical thinking,

creative thinking, communication, and collaboration

is a very important ability that must be possessed by

students (Maneen, 2016: 35). According to P21, 4C's

is an ability that can prepare students facing complex

life and work environments in the 21

century (P21,

2015).

2.1 The 4c’s: Critical Thinking,

Creative Thinking,

Communication, and Collaboration

2.1.1 Critical Thinking

Critical thinking. According to P21 the emphasis on

critical thinking are using various types of reasoning,

such as inductive or deductive as well as effective

analysis and evaluating evidence, arguments, claims,

and beliefs, analyse and evaluate major alternative

points of view, synthesize and make connection

between information and arguments, interpret

information and draw conclusions based on the best

analysis, reflective critically on learning experiences

and processes, solutions for different problems in

conventional and innovative ways, identify and ask

significant questions that clarify various points of

view and lead to better solutions.

2.1.2 Creative Thinking

P21 emphasizes creative thinking skills in using wide

range of idea creation techniques, such as

brainstorming, ideas, elaborate, refine, analyze and

evaluate original ideas to improve creative efforts,

Integrating the Framework of 21st Century Learning (4C) into Creative Music Learning

235

develop, implement, and communicate new ideas to

others effectively, be open and responsive to new and

diverse perspectives, demonstrate originality and

inventiveness in work and see failure as an

opportunity to learn, act and contribute to the fields

which are innovation will occur.

2.1.3 Communication

P21 emphasizes communication skills on ability to

articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral,

written, and nonverbal communication skills in

various forms and contexts, listen to meaning,

including knowledge, values, attitudes, and

intentions, use communication for a range purposes,

use multiple media and technologies, and know how

to assess the impact and effectiveness of a priori,

communicate effectively in diverse environments.

2.1.4 Collaborations

According to P21, collaboration skills including

demonstrating the ability to work effectively and

respectfully with diverse team exercise flexibility and

willingness to be helpful in making necessary

compromises to accomplish a common goal, assume

shared responsibility for collaborative work, and

value the individual contributions made by each team

member.

2.2 Creative Music

Creative music is a music learning material with the

aim to learn about sound. Sound is the most important

element in music. So that at the beginning of music

learning, the teacher should help students able to learn

listening sounds. Listening sound is essential in music

education (Schafer, 1992). Listening is the first

musical activity to humans since humans were still in

the womb (Graven & Browne, 2008: 187-93).

In creative music learning the material taught is

how to listen to various kinds of sounds around us.

The sound that was heard then organized and created

a new musical composition. In addition to creating

new musical compositions, in the process, it is

possible to create or find new musical instruments.

The composition of music and musical instruments

made in creative music learning emphasizes

something new, it means students are encouraged to

be able to think creatively to produce new musical

compositions and musical instruments.

In learning creative music, students learn in a group

which is consists of 10-15 students. Each group will

be accompanied by students of Music Education

Study Program of Faculty of Performing Arts, Institut

Seni Indonesia (ISI) Yogyakarta, as a mentors or

facilitators. Each group will be given the task to

compose creative music about 3-5 minutes. The

indicator of the success of creative music composition

is creativity in composing music and producing

newness in making new musical instruments so that

they can create new sounds.

3 METHODS

This study is qualitative research in regard to the

consideration that the researcher focused on

observing, understanding, and analysing how 4c’s

integrated into creative music learning. The

participants of this study were students of Music

Education Study Program, Faculty of Performing

Arts, ISI Yogyakarta who were mentors for creative

music learning. The data was derived from

observations and in-depth interviews. The

observations were conducted to observe how 4c’s in

the framework of 21

century learning integrated into

creative music learning. In-depth interviews were

employed to explore how students use their 4c’s skill

in the process of creative music learning. The data

from observations and interviews were analysed

qualitatively to answer the research question

addressed in this study. The analysis triangulated all

data were needed.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 Creative Music in the Framework

of 21

Century Learning

In the 21

century learning framework, it is stated that

students must have the ability to be able to improve

their competence. The 4c's abilities in the 21

century

learning framework must be obtained by students in

every learning they do. In creative music learning, the

4's C abilities are very necessary. Composing music

and musical instruments in creative music learning

requires the ability of 4's.

Creative music is a music lesson whose material

focuses on students' sensitivity to various sounds.

Listening activity is an activity that is subjective and

covert (Kratus, 2017), so for some teachers, creative

music material looks rather difficult to teach.

However, sound listening material is a basic element

that is very important to shape students' musical

abilities and experiences.

Creative music learning focused on listening

activities is learning about concepts that help students

ICONARTIES 2019 - 1st International Conference on Interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities

236

to understand sound in music. According to Dunn

(1997), listening activities are natural active

processes and involve individual cognitive abilities.

Peterson (2006) further explained that active music

listeners are creative music makers, who construct

music using unique musical perceptions.

From the explanation above, it is known that the

activity of listening to music creates an individual

musical experience. Musical experience is an

individual subjective experience. Individual listeners'

musical representations are essential for listeners of

music themselves, that is music for these individuals.

Listening music requires high thinking skills

because all musical concepts learned are abstract

constructs. To be successful in creative music

learning, critical thinking skills are needed in order to

understand abstract music constructs. In addition to

critical thinking, because music activity is a very

subjective activity, this activity requires creative

thinking, because each individual will creatively use

their own ways to understand music. In an effort to

understand creative music learning, communication

skills are needed. Communication is needed to

convey ideas, concepts, or questions to understand the

sounds that they listen to. Collaborative ability is also

needed to be able to convey ideas and concepts about

sound in the form of musical performances.

From this explanation, it can be concluded that

creative music learning is learning about how a

person can think critically, think creatively,

communicate, and collaborate (4c’s) to be able to

understand the sound that later constructed into

music. The 4c's abilities are directly integrated into

creative music learning, so making creative music

learning becomes an important material to be taught

to students.

4.2 Critical Thinking and Creative

Music Learning

Critical thinking in learning creative music is also

needed. In terms to understand sound, the ability to

think convergent and divergent is needed. Convergent

thinking is a form of problem-solving that produces a

definite answer, while divergent thinking is a form of

problem-solving that produces a variety of answers.

Learning creative music requires students to be

able to make a composition of music and also a new

musical instrument from a variety of sounds that are

explored. In terms of making a creative music

product, students must use critical thinking. The goal

of critical thinking is problem-solving. In creative

music learning making or producing creative music is

a 'problem' that must be solved by students. To solve

the 'problem', students can use convergent and

divergent thinking.

Students use critical thinking in exploring sounds.

From the results of sound exploration, students will

analyse the possibilities of sound that can be used in

making creative musical compositions. Sound

exploration also allows students to create creative

musical instruments. Creative musical instruments

referred to here are musical instruments that are made

by students based on the results of sound exploration

using the ability of critical thinking students. This

instrument is also made from items that are easily

found by students.

In the process of creative music learning, critical

thinking is needed by students to analyse sound,

analysing how the sound is arranged to put in creative

musical compositions, analysing and evaluating

various kinds of ideas from group mates, and make

decisions based on various kinds of information,

ideas, views, and experience gained. So that in the

end students can produce creative music products.

4.3 Creative Thinking and Creative

Music Learning

In creative music learning, critical thinking skills are

related to creative thinking skills (Small, 1987;

Pogonowski, 1987). Producing products in creative

music, students must also use their creative thinking.

Students' creative thinking produces innovation.

Innovation in creative music learning in is creative

musical compositions or creative musical

instruments.

Creative thinking is related to divergent thinking.

The concept of divergent thinking in listening to

music is applied from concepts in psychology about

creativity: fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and

originality (Kratus, 2017). Fluency is related to how

individuals find various possible answers to a

question, problem or situation. Flexibility is the

ability to think of different types of responses to

questions, problems, or situations. Elaboration is the

ability to embellish, expand, or notice combinations

of ideas. Originality is the ability to think uniquely.

Fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality are

the results of creative thinking. In creative music

learning, these four things are needed to make

creative musical compositions and or creative

musical instruments. Fluency in creative music

learning is used to listen to various kinds of sounds,

so the sound can be identified. Flexibility in creative

music learning is used not only to list various kinds

of sounds that are heard but also to list more details

about what sounds are heard and what they feel when

Integrating the Framework of 21st Century Learning (4C) into Creative Music Learning

237

they hear the sound. Elaboration on creative music

learning is used when listening to various kinds of

sounds, then students listen various kinds of sounds

simultaneously. Originality in creative music learning

is used when students hear sounds, students can

explain the sounds they hear according to what they

imagine. This image will be different from one to the

other. This is the originality of students.

In producing innovations in creative music

learning, fluency and flexibility allow students to be

able to identify various types of sounds and use them

in their creative musical compositions or from a

variety of sounds that are heard, students can make

creative musical instruments. From each student's

exploration of the sound they listen to, the sound is

elaborated on the creative musical composition they

are working on. After the sounds are elaborated in

creative musical compositions, in the end, students

produce a creative music product that is the

composition of creative music and original musical

instruments.

4.4 Collaboration and Creative Music

Learning

Collaboration in 21

century learning is an important

ability that students must have to achieve meaningful

and effective results. The ability to collaborate also

prepares students to work in teams. According to

Surowiecki (2005), collaboration in a group with

various kinds of individual backgrounds will give

better results and produce intellectual decisions than

someone who is an expert in making decisions.

In creative music learning, collaboration skills are

needed not only in making creative musical

compositions but also in playing these compositions

in groups. Making creative musical compositions in

creative music learning requires many ideas, so it

requires the collaboration of ideas from each group

member so that the composition of the music can

reflect original ideas.

After a creative musical composition is made, the

ability to cooperate and collaborate is also needed

when perform their creative music compositions that

have been made. At the end of creative music

learning, a creative music festival was held. This

festival displays creative musical works that have

been made by students.

4.5 Communication and Creative

Music Learning

Communication skills are also needed in creative

music learning. In the 21

century learning

framework, communication skills are needed by

students to be able to convey ideas through speaking

and writing. Communication skills are very closely

related to the ability to collaborate. Because

communication can work effectively if the individual

invited to communicate can understand what is being

communicated. As stated by Seefeldt (2004) that

social skills (collaboration) and communication skills

go together.

In learning creative music, students are required

to have good communication skills so that every idea

they have can be communicated well in groups.

Communication is also needed to analyse and

evaluate creative musical compositions and the

creation of creative musical instruments with tutors

who guide students in groups.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The 4c's ability in the 21

century learning framework

is an ability that must be achieved by all students. The

ability 4c’s not only increases students' cognitive

abilities at school but also provides opportunities for

students to prepare themselves to improve their

competence in facing increasingly complex global

and workplace challenges in the 21st century.

In creative music learning, the main material of

learning focused on listening. The 4c's ability is

needed so that it can produce creative music products:

the composition of creative music and creative

musical instruments. Although the 4c's abilities are

four different abilities, these four abilities are

holistically integrated into creative music learning.

Critical thinking ability is the main ability in

creative music learning, but relationships with

creative abilities thinking, collaboration, and

communication are equally important. This is

explained by Richard and Elder (2006) who

emphasize that critical thinking has a very close

relationship with creative thinking. Critical thinking

also requires communication skills to analyse and

evaluate critical thinking, while collaboration

capabilities are needed to realize ideas that arise from

critical thinking.

Making creative music compositions and creative

musical instruments begins by using critical thinking

and creative thinking on listening activities. The ideas

that emerge when listening sounds then communicate

and be analysed. These emerging ideas are compiled

and organized in creative musical compositions using

creative musical instruments. In the end, to produce

products from creative music, it takes the ability to

ICONARTIES 2019 - 1st International Conference on Interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities

238

collaborate in groups to be able to play the creative

musical compositions that have been made.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank all students of Music

Education Study Program of Institut Seni Indonesia

Yogyakarta for their help with data collection and

data analysis.

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